Stagecoach trials Everything Everywhere NFC bus tickets in the UK

By Raphael Michilis
Stagecoach, one of the UK’s largest bus and rail operators, and mobile operator Everything Everywhere have teamed up to launch an NFC payments initiative in Cambridgeshire.

The project is still on trial, but it is said to be “the UK’s first government-standard commercial deployment of mobile contactless transport ticketing,” according to Everything Everywhere.

The new service is being tested by a small group of passengers that can receive, store and authenticate their bus ticket via NFC enabled mobile devices, which are built-in with an app designed for the pre-existing local bus network’s smart card readers.

The trial participants are using handsets featuring the Orange and Barclaycard Quick Tap, supplied by Everything Everywhere.

The trial takes place on Cambridgeshire bus routes, including the Cambridge Park & Ride and Guided Busway, and might be extended nationwide in 2013, depending on the success of the experiment.

"Once this trial is complete, we will carry out a review of the findings and assess the potential to expand the scheme further for our passengers,"said Martin Griffiths, Stagecoach finance director.

Stagecoach has a fleet of 7,700 buses that serves about 2.5 million passengers every day, and, according to Everything Everywhere, the joint initiative will help meeting government Government’s requirement to have most of public transport journeys using smart ticketing by December 2014.

Tata Docomo launches Twitter mobile top up in India

By Raphael Michilis
More and more businesses around the globe are focusing on the social networking generation and launching initiatives dedicated to that segment – and the convergence with payments is accelerating.

The latest to do so was Indian mobile service provider Tata Docomo, which is rolling out Twittcom, an alternative service that permits its GSM prepaid customers to register their phone number and top up their accounts through the social network Twitter.

"With the increasing consumption of internet and the rise of social media, it makes ample sense to be present on the medium where people are spending time at present or they are likely to spend time in the future," said  Ritesh Ghosal, head of brand marketing at Tata Teleservices.

To register their account, customers have to post a tweet to @tatadocomo typing their mobile number preceded by the hashtag #reg (#reg 000000000).

Tata then sends a verification pin code via SMS that should be tweeted again at the handle @tatadocomo after the hashtag #code (#code 0000000000). The @tatadocomo handle will post back this tweet confirming the registration.

To activate a value-added service via Twitter, the subscriber needs to again type the @tatadocomo handle and the following #act# service value. The confirmation of the successful top up will also come in the form of a tweet.

Although these steps mean that customers’ personal data will be posted in the public environment of a social network, such as their mobile number, Tata Docomo is optimistic about the initiative."Our community on Facebook is amongst the strongest in the world and Twitter too will reach the same levels quite soon,” pondered Ghosal.